Teachers Share their Experiences While Living Abroad!

As the 2016 Summer Olympics came to an end, the tiny nation of Korea celebrated another victorious Olympic games and began looking forward to hosting the 2018 winter games in Pyeongchang. Korean athletes did their nation proud as they accumulated 21 medals and placed their nation 8th overall! This is rather impressive for a small nation, against its larger competitors, China and Japan. Korea dominated in Archery and Taekwondo, winning 5 medals in each, and 4 gold medals in Archery. The whole country was suspended in awe and anticipation as the final rounds of Archery was being televised on the local network, KBS. It was definitely the highlighted topic at Chungdahm Learning among my students, during the Summer.

Springtime has finally arrived in South Korea and if you are a frequent reader of the Aclipse blog then you have probably realized this country enjoys its festivals. With the arrival of warmer weather it also brings with it a flurry of festivals around the country; from Holi Hai in Busan to Jinhae’s celebration of the beautiful cherry blossom. Since I teach on Saturday’s this term, unfortunately my options are a bit more limited when it comes to attending the various festivals, but I still managed to squeeze in on this past weekend in Nonsan, where I checked out the city’s annual strawberry festival. This is definitely a festival worth checking out while you are teaching in Korea.

While South Korea is not the largest country in Asia, it is still quite amazing to me just how easy it is to get around. As an English teacher in South Korea, I have the option of traveling from one end of the country to the other in around two hours thanks to the KTX, or the Korean Bullet Train. What makes this train service even more fantastic is that you don't have to travel long distances to use it. Last weekend for example, I went from Daegu to Busan for the weekend, a trip that would take around two hours by car or three hours by bus, took only 42 minutes via the KTX.

As someone who grew up in a landlocked state nearly smack in the middle of the U.S., traveling to another state was normal. But going to another country? Too far and too expensive. In fact, while I've traveled all over the U.S., moving to Korea was the first time I'd ever left my home country. Now that I'm here, the novelty of being able to easily country-hop is still so amazing to me. I can't even count the hours I've spent planning the trips I'll be taking someday. Lucky for you, in all of my planning, I've amassed a huge amount of resources. So get ready to bookmark websites, because it's about to get real with a whole lot of information.

I had lunch with a good friend of mine today. (Coincidentally, he is a friend I made during ChungDahm training week.) One of the things we talked about was how amazing Korea’s public transportation is. I met him in a city that’s about 40 minutes north of me by car. To get there, I walked 5 minutes to the bus stop from my apartment, waited 2 minutes for the first bus to come by, hopped on, and rode it for about ten minutes. I got off, walked about 3 minutes to the train station, bought a ticket for the next train to my destination, and 5 minutes after that I was on a train heading to the city we agreed to meet at. That trip cost me about $3.60. For the most part, public transportation in Korea is convenient, quick, and more than affordable.